35 years of DOME employment support

On the International day of the Older Person 2016, there was a small party at the State Library to celebrate 35 years of DOME support for mature age unemployed. Special guests representing Government, Employers, Volunteers and Staff, past and present, attended the event.

Mr Greg Goudie the Executive Director of DOME asked those gathered “Is this 35 year anniversary cause for celebration or for discontent?”

“I believe it a celebration because of the number of mature age unemployed we have helped find work over the past 35 years. But there may still be discontent because we still have age discrimination and there is still a need for a service such as DOME.”

“In October 1981 the DOME Association (Don’t Overlook Mature Expertise) was formed by 5 people getting together to help each other overcome the negative issues they faced in trying to gain employment. A year later they had over 500 members. Now we have over 2,800 people looking for employment. This is the highest number of people registered with DOME ever. Over the past 35 years DOME would have worked with over 30,000 mature aged job seekers and successfully assisted over 20,000 of them into employment.”

“A survey last year showed that people registered with DOME did not feel that there was any discrimination at job interviews because of their gender. They did however feel discrimination because of their age. So as a society we appear to be having success in changing people’s attitudes to gender discrimination but we don’t appear to be making any progress with age discrimination.”

“I feel that my role at DOME is to do myself out of a job by getting all these mature age unemployed into work and changing attitudes so that this form of discrimination doesn’t exist and there is then no need for an organisation like DOME. It would appear that I have been singularly unsuccessful in this quest.” Mr Goudie said.

“DOME has been successful in providing some tangible benefits. In monetary terms I have calculated that the assistance we gave to the 500+ successful job seekers just last year would have generated over $20 million in wages, which would have incurred $3 Million in taxes and saved the Commonwealth around $7 million in Centrelink benefit payments. This income generation can only be good for business and the economy because these people will then purchase goods with that income, where they would have been unable to do so before.” Mr Goudie said.

DOME is a not for profit/charity that has been primarily funded through various programs with the SA Government Department of State Development and donations from jobseekers and employers over the years and we are grateful for that support.
Contact Greg Goudie – Executive Director DOME – 0400 107 544 – greg.goudie@dome.org.au